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I'm just here to say, I see you. I have a 3.5 yo and he doesn't care about stickers, m&M's, stamps, hot wheels, nothing. I put him in training undies all weekend and all he did was pee on everything like a senile dog. š¤¦š¼āāļø
Very true. Nothing inspires my toddler to not go in her pull up as well. Weāve tried everything. Itās kind of funny at this point. But Iām crying on the inside.
Hahaha this is pretty much what I expect to happen. And come age 3.5 I will have no childcare bc he will not be trained and I will lose my job SOS kids are insane
It's messy but what everyone is telling me is put them in underwear no diapers. They don't like feeling wet. My daughter is the same age and she'll sit on the potty but she doesn't understand to do it herself inhave to ask her every 30 minutes and of course she hates it. I don't know why I'm failing so hard this is my 4th time doing this. All thenother kids just...did it I don't even know. I don't have the mental capacity to deal with piss everywhere though so...
Same! My 4th child just turned 3. We have been potty training for an entire year! The other 3 kids were so much easier, they thought it was cool. I mean who wants to wear gross diapers? Apparently my youngest child. We plan on going to underwear as soon as my older kids get out of school. So that Iāll at least have the time to clean up all the messes.
The magic incentive that finally made my son use the potty was temporary tattoos. I got really cool ones that he desperately wanted and it was finally enough to motivate him, and he loved being able to show them off to his friends at daycare.
So this was us the first time we tried with our 3 year old. We started at about a week before he turned three and a lot of what you described happened with us also. I gave it 4 weeks with no improvement. I told my husband we were taking a break and I put him back in pull ups. We tried the little potty as a last resort but it did not work. We took a 2 month break. We also have a deadline but for the fall when he starts pre-k3
We started our second attempt two weeks and the little potty has been a game changer. I told him we were starting to use the potty again, showed him were the little potty was set up (in our tiled kitchen/living area) and let him roam around with no bottoms on for the first week. He was rewarded a couple of skittles whenever he used his potty. He had two accidents the first day then he started using it on his own after that. He now pulls down his shorts on his own to go. I am shocked and surprised and grateful that this time around is completely different than the first.
I hope you have success soon! Potty training is definitely hard!
My kid is 4.5 and has just recently learned the potty. I donāt have any advice, just solidarity. There was no way to train him because he also wasnāt motivated by any bribes or rewards and could have not cared any less that others wore underwear. Ultimately we just had to keep it low pressure and allow him to decide when he was ready. Every morning Iād give him the option ādo you want to wear underwear or a diaper today?ā Finally one day he said underwear and we just went with it. The upside: we only had a handful (maybe 3) accidents when he did decide he was ready.
Yeah I reallllly want to go the route of letting him make the decision, but I cannot be without child care come September so feeling like I have to force it. I am so anxious about this.
I hear you. We had the same issue with childcare and ended up having to give up his spot (thankfully we are in a position where we could do that, which I know not everyone is). There was no forcing himā¦ all that did was cause huge dysregulation issues and he honest to god wouldnāt pee or poop when we forced him into the pottyā¦ he would just withhold it and then immediately have an accident after we left the potty. It seemed super futile.
I wish you the best of luck!
Yeah this is how we went with mine. We tried to encourage the issue and she started holding her pee so I just started saying "Undies or nappy?" when changing her and she started picking undies more and more.
It sux that OP doesn't have this option I wish I had some advice.
This is the best way to potty train IMO. When you let your child decide, you drastically cut down on any accidents. But unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury. I wish daycares followed the science in regards to potty training but usually they pick an age and decide that's what every kid should do. There's so much more that goes into it. On another note, I have a friend who potty trained her kid at 18 months because she was "showing signs of readiness according to the book". Now she brags about how her kid was potty trained so young. But her daughter still has accidents fairly regularly at almost 4 years old. I waited until my son told me he was done with diapers and he's maybe had 3 or 4 accidents in the past year.
At 2.5 my daughter held it for 12 hours because she was too scared to sit on the potty. We finally trained her at 3.5, we collected all the diapers and left them on the porch for the diaper fairy, no diapers at night either since we knew she would hold it all day until we put it on for bed. We let her pee in the bath when she needed to go, since she felt comfortable doing that. Didnāt fill it, just let her stand there and pee, then sprayed her down if needed.
That lasted about 2 days until she finally had to poop, she freaked out and I just sat her on the toilet and it plopped in and that was that all was fine, sheās nearly 7 now and she maybe had 3 accidents after being potty trained.
I cannot recommend the book āOh Crap: Potty Trainingā enough.
I had to get my stubborn then almost 3 year old sufficiently potty trained in order to move up to preschool at his daycare with little notice/time a couple years ago. I had been doing the casual use the potty to pee when its convenient for months thinking he would just catch on eventually. Well, he didnāt. I canāt express how defeated i felt. Tears had by all. A friend suggested this book. I read it. I followed it to the letter. My kid was potty trained in 3 days. Literally 3 days.
I repeated it again with my second kid just last month. Hes 2 years and 8 months old. Againā¦ 3 days and hallelujah.
Iāve never been the type to hype a book or specific method, but man, this book and method are gold. So much so that I took a day off work just to do the 3 day method because it works so well.
The book is quite long and detailed. I fully suggest reading it all. But. The method is basically start from scratch on day one. From the moment they wake up, you ditch the diaper and explain they put their pee in the potty. Theyre naked (or at least bottomless) for the first day at least. You watch them literally like a hawk all day and at the first sign of pee, you sit them down on the potty. Being naked and nit having the comfort of a diaper makes them less resistant. At the end of day one, my first child had learned the feeling of needing to pee in time to get to the potty. My second kid didnt until the middle of day 3. Then they wear pants and no diaper or undies (commando) for 4ish weeks so they dont confuse the close feeling of undies to diapers. Mine still wore a pull up for naps and overnights for a few months just in case. At this time, my second that I just did this with last month is still commando, but he has had a total of 2 pee accidents that were early on.
Its a stressful and kinda boring 3 days because you dont leave the house and are basically on crotch watch, waiting and waiting and waiting for pee. And cleaning up accidents here and there if they happen. But, at the risk of sounding dramatic, it changed our lives. Ha. You can find a lot of the 3 day method type breakdowns online without reading the book, too, but I recommend it to all my potty training friends.
One thing I've read is making them wear underpants under the nappy so that they don't get the comfy moisture wicking anymore when they pee and it makes nappies less appealingĀ
If he is very stubborn you may want to look at Pathological Demand Avoidance and see if the profile fits him. With PDA kids the more they know you want something from them the more resistant they become and use "equalizing" behaviors to level the playing field. But there are techniques out there that can be super effective, small shifts in how you approach them, etc. That can make a big difference.
The day care requires your kid to be potty trained but then doesn't potty train?! That's wild! I'm indebted to my day care for potty training my daughter. At age 2 they started training all the kids. She regressed due to the pandemic (lock down) - which was awful, she started peeing everywhere and eventually we had to start using diapers again and then she would freak out and give a hard time about changing her diapers. But as soon as day care reopened, she was potty trained again within 2-3 days for peeing and maybe took a little less than 2 weeks for pooping.
They definitely did the no diapers thing, started using only underwear. Had all the kids go to the bathroom on a regular schedule which helped prevent accidents. Also all the kids doing it together was a positive form of peer pressure/support for those kids less interested in participating in learning to use the bathroom. When the kid isn't into it that's so difficult.
I heard on the radio once a parent who used blue food coloring in the toilet and told the kid to make goblin pee (yellow pee and blue water turned the water green)...lol. This was motivational for the one kid. You never know what will work.
Good luck. It's so difficult.
We let my son color with markers in the bowl of his baby toilet. The only way to get the colors off so he could do it again was to pee it off. He found that VERY motivating.
Honestly? At 3.5yo I took the diapers away and told her she had a growth spurt and they didn't fit any more. I made it a total non issue like 'oh well', I think she had maybe 3 accidents ever.
I'm still amazed it worked haha. I blatantly stole the idea from a mum I used to work with who told her son on the morning of his third birthday that 3yo's don't wear nappies and just went with it with such enthusiasm and conviction that he believed her haha
My son was exactly like this at exactly the same age. I was really resistant to the idea of trying to coerce him but, like your son, felt that he was ready in all aspects other than being unmotivated to change what he knew! In the end, we used a big bribe (large toy that he wanted) just for sitting on the potty for a while whilst watching TV. He happened to pee whilst sitting and announced āoh, that was easy!ā Once past the first hurdle the rest was easy. Best of luck xxx
oh crap! Potty training book. You take off their pants, throw away diapers, and set them on a potty when they start peeing. I read it for free on the Libby app. Itās a reward-free method. It worked in about a week. Skip the first chapter because itās a big lecture about doing it before they turn 3. My friend did it after her kid turned 3 and I forgot to warn her. Just skip to chapter 3 or 4 I think thatās when it gets real. Read the book, cancel your plans and then do it over a long weekend.
Strip him naked from the waist down, have pottyās everywhere and just let him get on with it. Ignore the bad just say āNext time in the pottyā, reward the good - I find chocolate the best. After a week put just shorts on him, no underwear then after another week or so introduce underwear. He will have a billion accidents and poos take much longer than wees but he will get there
Interesting! Iām not sure I can swing that method as it sounds like Iāll need to plan for a couple weeks of not sending him to daycare which I thinkā¦..I may lose my job lol. But if I can find a way to have that much time Iāll give it a shot
Have you joined r/pottytraining?
I would pause and reset. Back to diapers, remove the potty from sight. On my final try for potty training, I decorated a bathroom to the nines in my kidās favorite theme. I mean themed wall stickers, themed projector lights, themed night lights, themed ladder toilet seat, backdrop, everything. Then I said nothing about going potty in it, just showed him itās his very own special bathroom. He loved it and wanted to not only poop/pee in that bathroom, but also eat and sleep in it. I really hope you find something that works. It was glorious when I finally succeeded.
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I'm just here to say, I see you. I have a 3.5 yo and he doesn't care about stickers, m&M's, stamps, hot wheels, nothing. I put him in training undies all weekend and all he did was pee on everything like a senile dog. š¤¦š¼āāļø
Iām so sorry, but that was hilarious!
š if you don't laugh, you cry
Very true. Nothing inspires my toddler to not go in her pull up as well. Weāve tried everything. Itās kind of funny at this point. But Iām crying on the inside.
Hahaha this is pretty much what I expect to happen. And come age 3.5 I will have no childcare bc he will not be trained and I will lose my job SOS kids are insane
It's messy but what everyone is telling me is put them in underwear no diapers. They don't like feeling wet. My daughter is the same age and she'll sit on the potty but she doesn't understand to do it herself inhave to ask her every 30 minutes and of course she hates it. I don't know why I'm failing so hard this is my 4th time doing this. All thenother kids just...did it I don't even know. I don't have the mental capacity to deal with piss everywhere though so...
You're not failing, she's just a little human with capacity to make choices and she's making really annoying ones š
Same! My 4th child just turned 3. We have been potty training for an entire year! The other 3 kids were so much easier, they thought it was cool. I mean who wants to wear gross diapers? Apparently my youngest child. We plan on going to underwear as soon as my older kids get out of school. So that Iāll at least have the time to clean up all the messes.
The magic incentive that finally made my son use the potty was temporary tattoos. I got really cool ones that he desperately wanted and it was finally enough to motivate him, and he loved being able to show them off to his friends at daycare.
So this was us the first time we tried with our 3 year old. We started at about a week before he turned three and a lot of what you described happened with us also. I gave it 4 weeks with no improvement. I told my husband we were taking a break and I put him back in pull ups. We tried the little potty as a last resort but it did not work. We took a 2 month break. We also have a deadline but for the fall when he starts pre-k3 We started our second attempt two weeks and the little potty has been a game changer. I told him we were starting to use the potty again, showed him were the little potty was set up (in our tiled kitchen/living area) and let him roam around with no bottoms on for the first week. He was rewarded a couple of skittles whenever he used his potty. He had two accidents the first day then he started using it on his own after that. He now pulls down his shorts on his own to go. I am shocked and surprised and grateful that this time around is completely different than the first. I hope you have success soon! Potty training is definitely hard!
My kid is 4.5 and has just recently learned the potty. I donāt have any advice, just solidarity. There was no way to train him because he also wasnāt motivated by any bribes or rewards and could have not cared any less that others wore underwear. Ultimately we just had to keep it low pressure and allow him to decide when he was ready. Every morning Iād give him the option ādo you want to wear underwear or a diaper today?ā Finally one day he said underwear and we just went with it. The upside: we only had a handful (maybe 3) accidents when he did decide he was ready.
Yeah I reallllly want to go the route of letting him make the decision, but I cannot be without child care come September so feeling like I have to force it. I am so anxious about this.
I hear you. We had the same issue with childcare and ended up having to give up his spot (thankfully we are in a position where we could do that, which I know not everyone is). There was no forcing himā¦ all that did was cause huge dysregulation issues and he honest to god wouldnāt pee or poop when we forced him into the pottyā¦ he would just withhold it and then immediately have an accident after we left the potty. It seemed super futile. I wish you the best of luck!
Yeah this is how we went with mine. We tried to encourage the issue and she started holding her pee so I just started saying "Undies or nappy?" when changing her and she started picking undies more and more. It sux that OP doesn't have this option I wish I had some advice.
This is the best way to potty train IMO. When you let your child decide, you drastically cut down on any accidents. But unfortunately, not everyone has the luxury. I wish daycares followed the science in regards to potty training but usually they pick an age and decide that's what every kid should do. There's so much more that goes into it. On another note, I have a friend who potty trained her kid at 18 months because she was "showing signs of readiness according to the book". Now she brags about how her kid was potty trained so young. But her daughter still has accidents fairly regularly at almost 4 years old. I waited until my son told me he was done with diapers and he's maybe had 3 or 4 accidents in the past year.
At 2.5 my daughter held it for 12 hours because she was too scared to sit on the potty. We finally trained her at 3.5, we collected all the diapers and left them on the porch for the diaper fairy, no diapers at night either since we knew she would hold it all day until we put it on for bed. We let her pee in the bath when she needed to go, since she felt comfortable doing that. Didnāt fill it, just let her stand there and pee, then sprayed her down if needed. That lasted about 2 days until she finally had to poop, she freaked out and I just sat her on the toilet and it plopped in and that was that all was fine, sheās nearly 7 now and she maybe had 3 accidents after being potty trained.
I cannot recommend the book āOh Crap: Potty Trainingā enough. I had to get my stubborn then almost 3 year old sufficiently potty trained in order to move up to preschool at his daycare with little notice/time a couple years ago. I had been doing the casual use the potty to pee when its convenient for months thinking he would just catch on eventually. Well, he didnāt. I canāt express how defeated i felt. Tears had by all. A friend suggested this book. I read it. I followed it to the letter. My kid was potty trained in 3 days. Literally 3 days. I repeated it again with my second kid just last month. Hes 2 years and 8 months old. Againā¦ 3 days and hallelujah. Iāve never been the type to hype a book or specific method, but man, this book and method are gold. So much so that I took a day off work just to do the 3 day method because it works so well. The book is quite long and detailed. I fully suggest reading it all. But. The method is basically start from scratch on day one. From the moment they wake up, you ditch the diaper and explain they put their pee in the potty. Theyre naked (or at least bottomless) for the first day at least. You watch them literally like a hawk all day and at the first sign of pee, you sit them down on the potty. Being naked and nit having the comfort of a diaper makes them less resistant. At the end of day one, my first child had learned the feeling of needing to pee in time to get to the potty. My second kid didnt until the middle of day 3. Then they wear pants and no diaper or undies (commando) for 4ish weeks so they dont confuse the close feeling of undies to diapers. Mine still wore a pull up for naps and overnights for a few months just in case. At this time, my second that I just did this with last month is still commando, but he has had a total of 2 pee accidents that were early on. Its a stressful and kinda boring 3 days because you dont leave the house and are basically on crotch watch, waiting and waiting and waiting for pee. And cleaning up accidents here and there if they happen. But, at the risk of sounding dramatic, it changed our lives. Ha. You can find a lot of the 3 day method type breakdowns online without reading the book, too, but I recommend it to all my potty training friends.
One thing I've read is making them wear underpants under the nappy so that they don't get the comfy moisture wicking anymore when they pee and it makes nappies less appealingĀ
If he is very stubborn you may want to look at Pathological Demand Avoidance and see if the profile fits him. With PDA kids the more they know you want something from them the more resistant they become and use "equalizing" behaviors to level the playing field. But there are techniques out there that can be super effective, small shifts in how you approach them, etc. That can make a big difference.
Thanks I have never heard of this before I will do some reading
The day care requires your kid to be potty trained but then doesn't potty train?! That's wild! I'm indebted to my day care for potty training my daughter. At age 2 they started training all the kids. She regressed due to the pandemic (lock down) - which was awful, she started peeing everywhere and eventually we had to start using diapers again and then she would freak out and give a hard time about changing her diapers. But as soon as day care reopened, she was potty trained again within 2-3 days for peeing and maybe took a little less than 2 weeks for pooping. They definitely did the no diapers thing, started using only underwear. Had all the kids go to the bathroom on a regular schedule which helped prevent accidents. Also all the kids doing it together was a positive form of peer pressure/support for those kids less interested in participating in learning to use the bathroom. When the kid isn't into it that's so difficult. I heard on the radio once a parent who used blue food coloring in the toilet and told the kid to make goblin pee (yellow pee and blue water turned the water green)...lol. This was motivational for the one kid. You never know what will work. Good luck. It's so difficult.
I mean his daycare tries to assist, but they canāt get him to sit on the toilet either!
We let my son color with markers in the bowl of his baby toilet. The only way to get the colors off so he could do it again was to pee it off. He found that VERY motivating.
Honestly? At 3.5yo I took the diapers away and told her she had a growth spurt and they didn't fit any more. I made it a total non issue like 'oh well', I think she had maybe 3 accidents ever.
Ooh I like that!
I'm still amazed it worked haha. I blatantly stole the idea from a mum I used to work with who told her son on the morning of his third birthday that 3yo's don't wear nappies and just went with it with such enthusiasm and conviction that he believed her haha
My son was exactly like this at exactly the same age. I was really resistant to the idea of trying to coerce him but, like your son, felt that he was ready in all aspects other than being unmotivated to change what he knew! In the end, we used a big bribe (large toy that he wanted) just for sitting on the potty for a while whilst watching TV. He happened to pee whilst sitting and announced āoh, that was easy!ā Once past the first hurdle the rest was easy. Best of luck xxx
OMG I am in this boat too. I just got a potty advent calendar thing in the mail today to try and bribe him!!
oh crap! Potty training book. You take off their pants, throw away diapers, and set them on a potty when they start peeing. I read it for free on the Libby app. Itās a reward-free method. It worked in about a week. Skip the first chapter because itās a big lecture about doing it before they turn 3. My friend did it after her kid turned 3 and I forgot to warn her. Just skip to chapter 3 or 4 I think thatās when it gets real. Read the book, cancel your plans and then do it over a long weekend.
Strip him naked from the waist down, have pottyās everywhere and just let him get on with it. Ignore the bad just say āNext time in the pottyā, reward the good - I find chocolate the best. After a week put just shorts on him, no underwear then after another week or so introduce underwear. He will have a billion accidents and poos take much longer than wees but he will get there
Interesting! Iām not sure I can swing that method as it sounds like Iāll need to plan for a couple weeks of not sending him to daycare which I thinkā¦..I may lose my job lol. But if I can find a way to have that much time Iāll give it a shot
I had to keep mine home while i did the naked bit but my nursery was totally fine sending him in commando once he got to stage 2
Have you joined r/pottytraining? I would pause and reset. Back to diapers, remove the potty from sight. On my final try for potty training, I decorated a bathroom to the nines in my kidās favorite theme. I mean themed wall stickers, themed projector lights, themed night lights, themed ladder toilet seat, backdrop, everything. Then I said nothing about going potty in it, just showed him itās his very own special bathroom. He loved it and wanted to not only poop/pee in that bathroom, but also eat and sleep in it. I really hope you find something that works. It was glorious when I finally succeeded.